Medications for Heart Disease Salem NH

This page provides relevant content and local businesses that can help with your search for information on Medications for Heart Disease. You will find informative articles about Medications for Heart Disease, including "Keeping your Heart healthy". Below you will also find local businesses that may provide the products or services you are looking for. Please scroll down to find the local resources in Salem, NH that can help answer your questions about Medications for Heart Disease.

Keeping your Heart healthy

It's easy to have your eyes examined, and many people see their dentist regularly, but do you know how healthy your heart is?

The American Heart Association says heart disease is our country's No. 1 killer, and 63 million Americans face some form of cardiovascular illness. Why do so many of us suffer from heart-related problems? And what should you do to keep your own heart healthy?

The first step is to assess your risk. Some risk factors are within your control, such as choosing not to smoke, making sure you control high blood pressure and limiting the amount of stress in your life.

Other factors are out of your control - things like age, whether heart disease runs in your family, and even your gender (a higher number of men suffer from cardiovascular disease than women).

Let's take a look at how some of these factors relate to you:

Assess your Risk

Cigarette smoking - Don't smoke - and stay away from smokers as much as possible. Chemicals in cigarettes cause blood vessels to narrow and lose their elasticity. In addition, smoking can affect your cholesterol level, another risk factor.

Low HDL cholesterol - If your HDL cholesterol level is too low (40mg/dL or lower), you may be at greater risk for heart problems. HDL cholesterol is the "good" cholesterol because it cleans fat out of the blood stream. The result - high levels of HDL cholesterol can help prevent a heart attack.

High blood pressure - This is easily controlled if detected. If your blood pressure reaches levels greater than 140/90 mm/Hg on a sustained basis, this puts extra strain on your heart and your blood vessels.

Family history of early heart disease - Does heart disease run in your family? If the answer is yes, you'll want to be extra cautious if the men in your family experience heart-related problems in their mid-50s or younger, or if the women in your family experience heart-related problems at 65 or younger.

Age - There's no getting around it: Someone with a younger heart is likely to have fewer heart-related problems than people in their 40s, 50s or 60s. Bad habits can catch up to you at this point in your life. Years of smoking, eating a diet high in fat and empty calories, and letting high blood pressure go untreated can take a heavy toll on your heart.

How to Know if You're Having a Heart Attack

Unfortunately, sometimes even the fittest people can experience heart attacks. If it happened to you, would you know it? And would you know what to do?

Contrary to popular belief, heart attacks aren't always the earth-shaking events we imagine. It is possible to suffer a heart attack and not even know it for days or months, when a medical exam or further testing uncovers it. You might even think you're just having a bad case of indigestion.